Tribal beats to break the disquiet of the streets - IN SEARCH OF SPACE #98

I need this, this is what I need. I ain’t got no freakouts for you today (aaaah ain’t gat no
money chaald, but ahh been he-a be-fo!), it’ll just be cool chillin’ rhythm
bringing us to the dawn. Because the album hot off the record presses from
Wakinyan. If the Dead Skeletons were spooky, and Goat were a native riot in a
commune at 500 miles an hour, then Wakinyan is less than both of them, and at
the same time spiritually more. The closest comparison could well be with Goat,
those astral shamans whose second tape helped us get t’ the west coast in quite
a bit of style and really quite fucking fast, in that these are shamanistic
rattlings and grumblings and weepings and moanings and singing and drumming and
not particularly allied to rock and roll; natural, I think their amplification
could be called, using bowl ravines to enhance the volume, singing to the stars,
using glass, botanics, hollow tree trunks each with a drummer to turn the
forest into a percussive instrument for their own mysterious rituals… wicca,
perhaps, Stregheria? Much more likely. Part of a whole new wave of ritualistic
and not entirely comprehendable motherfuckers coming out of Deutchland and
surrounding areas, there was that album of recordings made in a monastery, the
Pharoah Chromium that blew us away a while back, an entire album made of field
recordings of the B2 Spirit, an album literally
as heavy as the US military. I didn’t write about these in general because
while fascinating and deeply spiritually unsettling, I’m not sure they’re of
utmost use to the heads, firstly because they are simply too rare and obtuse to
honestly recommend to you, and second because they just aren’t useful in a
day-to-day capacity enough to warrant mention. This album is much more
conventional (it’ll still make yer Little Women sound like Michael Jackson but
whatevs) and available as infinite digital download, so dig in and dig it
y’all.

Copal Flow is the title, nine songs there be. Incense is the
byword, the whole thing is clothed in smoke, you can imagine it filtering
through the trees on this palacial natural splendour sound. It trickles, it
flows, occasionally it shrieks and hammers and yowls as nature is want to do.
Eternally it is unterrifying, even those parts that are frightening or sudden
are imbued with that same emotion when one encounters frightening or sudden
natural elements, a sense of resignation, of ennui, of everything in its place pervades the fabric of the record on a
cellular level. It is deeply calming. I recommend the digital version over the
vinyl in point of fact (I’m rocking the digital for the purposes of this review
because fuck backrupting myself and waiting weeks for the thing) because you
don’t have to get up halfway through to flip it, you can stay placid and
unengaged and let the scent wash
across you in the most affecting way. The ritual is always enlightening. I
haven’t been in possession long enough to confirm, but I’ve got a sense about
it, it’s gonna become one of those things, repeated spins will become not just
a spiritual necessity but a cardiovascular one. The thrumming beats will become
as essential as light.

Intricate emptiness fills the gaps between howling, there’s
no energy here, unlike Goat the songs don’t spring from the record and infest
the room, they become like incense, ambiance adding to the room in an almost
imperceptible way. The tribal drumming quietly rattles yer bones, like horses
hooves on time worn cobbled stones. Golden choral voiced female singers laugh,
cry, whisper and shout their way through the forest, stopping for far too long
between rituals, taking deep inhales of all the scents. Thinking back to
previous rituals. Somehow none of it is haunting or disquieting or frightening,
even when it all turns to aggressive smiles and the drumming takes on the tempo
of a barrow striding darkness howling across the wastes and through the forest
and the whispers become darker, accusatory. Ultimate peace is upon me and all,
there is nothing to jangle the nerves, no tension; tension washes away if ever
there was any. Every listen of this record brings about, through the amorality
of nature, a calm I have not before known in the city. I am constantly in
search of space, and my search may be momentarily at an end. Everything else
comes to an end when this album is set to spinning, everything bleeds away, you
become like the forest, calm. The city is bustling, there is no nature, even
the grass and the tress are cultivated and cut and trimmed. Nothing grows wild,
there is order, and out of total order comes chaos of the mind; a deep disquiet
that sits heavily in the stomach like a coiled snake. Relaxation is impossible
where nature fears to or cannot tread, and this album is sprouting mushrooms
out of my speakers, it’s growing grass wild in the carpet, birds flock to it
and the clouds bubble in unnatural ways when it is played. It is a truly
spectral and supernatural abyss of a record.

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